Archaeology Notes

Event ID 650401

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/650401

NC70NW 18 7381 0657

(A: NC 7384 0656; B: NC 7383 0655) Settlement (NR) (Name: NC 7391 0651) Field System (NR) (NC 7381 0660) Undescribed feature

OS 1:10,000 map, (1970)

North of Dremergid are a large number of mounds and the remains of several hut circles. There is a complex comprising a hut circle (A), a circular enclosure (B), a horse-shoe shaped enclosure, and a series of banks (see plan). In the hut interior is a divisional wall and, abutting the W wall arc, a small enclosure. There is another horse-shoe shaped enclosure (published at NC 7381 0660) nearby.

RCAHMS 1911, visited 1909.

Two hut circles (A and B) and an associated field system.

Visited by OS (N K B) 24 February 1966.

On a ridge are three hut circles (A-C) (hut C newly located at NC 7375 0661) and an accompanying field system. The complex of features is generally as planned by the RCAHMS:

Hut A, levelled back into a slight rise and heather and turf-covered, measures 13.0m in diameter within a wall up to 1.0m high and spread from 3.5m to 4.0m expanding to 5.0m in the sides of a splayed entrance in the SE. Inner-facing boulders show in the wall. Springing from the inside of the hut wall in the NE half, an arc of subsidiary walling, 2.0m broad by 0.4m high, forms a compartment 9.0m by 3.5m internally. The alleged enclosures against the W side is vague but the remainder of the interior is broken by loose and protruding stones suggesting footings of later bothy-type structures.

Hut B, levelled into the same slight rise at a marginally lower level, measures 11.0m in diameter within a heather-covered wall spread from 2.0m to 2.5m and up to 0.5m high; the ill-defined entrance is in the SE. The heather-covered bank or collapsed wall surrounding hut A is as planned by the RCAHMS; it appears to be contemporary with the hut, but its purpose is uncertain.

The horse-shoe shaped enclosure measures 14.5m across the open NE side by 13.0m transversely within a heather-covered bank, 3.0m broad by 0.4m maximum height, in which several boulders protrude. It is not a hut circle but a field plot. The similar enclosure at NC 7381 0660 measures 14.5m across the open W side by 11.0m transversely within a heather-covered, stony bank up to 4.5m broad by 0.6m high and is also a field plot.

Hut C measures 7.0m in diameter within a heather-covered wall, obscure in the NW sector but elsewhere 2.0m to 2.5m broad and up to 0.4m high. The entrance is not evident.

In comparing the three hut circles, 'A' stands out in presenting a markedly more robust build.

The field system is denoted by numerous stone clearance heaps, spaced on average from 5.0m to 20.0m apart, with occasional traces of lynchets and banks. With the exception of the two field plots mentioned, no other measurable plots are discernible.

Revised at 1:10,000

Visited by OS (J M) 9 April 1981.